But in the meantime, wherever you may be, you are now a SNAP, not a click, away from search results.

Here’s how . . .

My prediction is that Google Goggles, the visual search feature, is going to be critical tool for shoppers first. You’ll be able to take a photo of any UPC, ISBN, product packaging, book cover etc, and Google will be able to return a results page with shopping comparison data — letting you know if you have a great deal in front of you or not.

You can also imagine visual search being integrated with the Google.com/translate engine so that when you travel to another country, you can simply snap a photo of signs, menus or other foreign language text and get it translated into your native language instantly.

How about guided tour guides where you take a photo of any tourist attraction and Google would serve up wiki background as well as other information related to it such as admission price list, times of operation, and other neat factoids to enrich your travels.

As of now, it’s available only on the Android platform, but I suspect it will become real enough for the rest of market — either by Google or one of its competitors.